Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Caer Galen's Cavalier Challenge

The next event we hosted was the Caer Galen's Cavalier Challenge on Sunday. Caer Galen is the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronisms) barrony centered around Boulder, and they were the sponsor for this festival of equestrian challenges. The arrangement was that they were to arrive at 11 and setup until noon, and stay until 4. So that morning when the kennel dogs were taken care of rather quicker than normal, we decided we'd run out for a quick brunch. It was a little after 10:30 when we left the restaurant to go home. How surprised were we to arrive home and have to get in line to go up our driveway! As we pulled up, we were flagged down and given directions about where to park. HEE! That still amuses me. I thanked her... and then told her as the owner I had a reserved spot up in front of the garage.

Parking, we noticed that they had already moved the equipment out of the arena, had horses unloading and trailers parking. WOW we said. Guess they didn't need our help to set up! LOL. Actually in all they prooved to be rather self sufficent, so we got to stand back and enjoy the show. And what a show it was.

The costumes were beautiful. The people were friendly and playful. The horses wonderful.

Two of their members leased our horses, Rio and Bambi. They both did well, but Rio did manage to dump his rider and then run around like a fool until he was caught. Couldn't really blame him -- ALL SORTS of new sights, sounds and horses around after all. Rio's rider did get back up and continued with him.

Our little Rio!

Our Bambi - gettin them beehives

They had two main equestian events. The first was sword play with reeds and... some other bean bag type thing (which I've taken to calling beehives) both sitting on top of 5 foot high poles. The object to knock each off with your sword. The second was ring spearing / spear toss.

Many people did the challenges at a walk, so it is great to see so many being able to give these games a try. There were a couple of accomplished riders who gave the crowd a thrill by doing the challenges at a canter.

Each round was completed by bowing / curtseying to the baron.

They had a fencing contest also.

(What you can't see in the above picture is the 6 person chorus just off frame singing various themes from Star Wars... Imagine Darth Vader's theme accompanying the parrying.)

I got a lot of video from that day too... but haven't even had a chance to look at it yet... One of these days I'll post those too.

But really, the best part of the day was having the entertainment come to us!! Roger said he didn't think he'd ever seen any of us, much less all three of us, sit still for that long.

The BEST part of the day

The next day I went and looked up Caer Galen's website. Turns out we are just on the edge of the boundaries between two barronys, Caer Galen based at CU, and Unser Hafen based up around CSU in Ft. Collins. They just suggested we look at the events for each to decide which club to join... should we be interested in joining. I think I am. Yeah, with all that free time I have.